Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer to Honor Joe Amorim and Lew Meehl with Excellence in Coaching Awards Saturday, March 8th
Plymouth
Meeting, Pennsylvania – March 5, 2014 – Two highly-influential local soccer coaches,
Lew Meehl and Joe Amorim, will receive the 2013 Eastern Pennsylvania Youth
Soccer Association Excellence in Coaching Award during Eastern Pennsylvania
Youth Soccer’s Annual Award Reception, Saturday, March 8th at
the Radisson Hotel Philadelphia Northeast, located at 2400 Old Lincoln Highway
at US Route 1, in Trevose, PA (19043).
Cocktail hour begins at 6:30 p.m. with the awards
ceremony slated to begin at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets and additional information are available at http://www.epysa.org/events/awards_reception/.
“The
Excellence in Coaching award is presented annually to an individual who has
demonstrated a lifetime of dedication to coaching and educating within our
community,” said Chris Branscome, Chief Executive Officer of Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer. “Joe Amorim and Lew Meehl have both served
Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer and our community with integrity, honor,
humor and humility, and both have made extensive and far reaching contributions
to the process by which youth soccer players and coaches are taught in Eastern
Pennsylvania. We are proud to honor two
outstanding individuals like Joe and Lew, who have had such a positive impact
on the game of soccer, those that play it, and those that coach it in our
community.”
Joe Amorim was
the men’s soccer head coach at Haverford College from 1983 through 2008. At the helm of the oldest organized college
soccer team program in the nation, Amorim is the winningest coach in Haverford
College history, with 215 career wins as head coach. With a career record of
215-223-30, he holds a .491 winning percentage. He guided Haverford College to
three Middle Atlantic Conference Southern Division titles, and won the MAC
Overall Championship in 1988.
Since 1987,
Amorim has been a state coach for Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer, including
supervision of Olympic Development Program (ODP) and since 1989 he has been a
United States Youth Soccer Association Region I Assessor. In addition, Amorim is a former General
Secretary of Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer and a former Referee Evaluation Committee
Chairman, among other positions.
He has been a coach at all levels of the sport since the
mid-1970s, starting as the first boys’ soccer coach at St. James High School in
Chester, Pa. Before becoming head coach at Haverford College, Amorim was the
assistant coach for one season, and an assistant coach at Swarthmore College
for two years. Amorim was men’s soccer coordinator for the Keystone Games in
the mid-1980s, and coached a number of different teams in the United Soccer
League of Pennsylvania in the 1980s and 1990s.
He also served on a number of NCAA and conference committees while
coaching at Haverford College. Amorim
received his Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from LaSalle University and his
Master’s degree in Philosophy from Villanova University, and resides in
Havertown.
Lew Meehl, who was an
Olympic Development Program coach for parts of two decades with Eastern
Pennsylvania Youth Soccer, was the men’s soccer head coach at Drexel University
for 17 seasons, from 1993 to 2009, compiling a 133-150-31 record. He guided the Dragons to a North Atlantic Conference regular-season
championship in 1995, an American East Championship in 1998 and a share of the
CAA regular-season title in 2007.
A graduate of Frankford High
School, where he played both soccer and baseball, Meehl played collegiate
soccer at Temple University where he was a First Team All-America selection in
1967, and was inducted into the Temple Owls Hall of Fame in 1986.
In
1969, Meehl signed with the Philadelphia
Spartans of
the American Soccer League. In 1973, he moved to the Philadelphia Atoms of the North American Soccer League where he was
part of the 1973 NASL championship team. He returned to the ASL in 1975 with
the Pittsburgh Miners and the New
Jersey Americans in
1976. In 1978, he joined the Philadelphia Fever of the Major Indoor Soccer League for one season.
Meehl
served as an assistant coach with the Philadelphia Fever during the
1978-1979 MISL season. In 1981, Meehl coached Philadelphia Bayern to the finals
of the National Amateur Cup, and became an assistant coach with the Princeton
University men's soccer team in 1982. In 1984, he was hired as head coach
of the men's soccer team at Philadelphia Textile. In 1993 he left Philadelphia
Textile after compiling a 103-52-23 record. In 2001, he retired after 32
years as a health and physical education teacher at Bensalem High School.
Past recipients
of the Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer Association Excellence in Coaching
Award include Betty Ann Kempf-Townsley (2012); Terry Underkoffler (2012); John
Fellenbaum (2011); and Randy Garber (2011).
About Eastern
Pennsylvania Youth Soccer:
Since 1972, Eastern Pennsylvania Youth Soccer has
worked throughout Eastern Pennsylvania’s 36 counties to promote foster, and
perpetuate the game of soccer to the region’s youth. Through competitions, educational programs,
workshops and coaching clinics, each year Eastern
Pennsylvania Youth Soccer impacts the lives of more than 130,000 youth
soccer players from ages five to 19.
Additional information is available at www.EPYSA.org.